Insanity
by Ally147
Summary: Draco wasn't sure which instance of early-onset insanity was worse: that Harry Potter was so willing and happy to risk Hermione Granger-Malfoy's everlasting wrath, or that Draco was so willing to allow it. D/Hr, Post-Hogwarts AU, EWE. Written as a pinch-hit for the 2014 Dramione Duet


This was written as a pinch-hit for **slytheringurrl **at the Dramione Duet on LJ. Thank you as always to kanames_harisen for the beta work :)

**Warnings: **Draco's gutter mouth, and subtle hints at possible marijuana use/ingestion.

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. All fics posted at this community were written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>Draco Malfoy was starting to get the feeling that perhaps all that fame Harry Potter had always claimed an aversion to was starting to go to his head, for that was the only explanation he could fathom for the absolutely ludicrous request he was making. He stared at Harry for a long while, waiting for the irritatingly perky former Gryffindor to admit to his rather perverse idea of a joke, laugh like the bloody spanner he was, and freaking <em>l<em>_eave_ already.

Only he didn't. Harry remained fixed in his seat, staring at him with big, wheedling, annoying eyes. Like he was a needy kitten stranded in a rainstorm rather than the grown man nearing thirty, father-of-two-with-a-third-on-the-way that he actually was.

"You are insane, Potter," he finally declared. To illustrate his finality on the point, Draco swivelled around in his chair so he faced out his floor-to-ceiling office window and surveyed, with the sort of air a god might possess when overseeing his dominion, the densely packed, urban cityscape of Muggle London below.

Harry drummed three fingers in an irritating rhythm against his heavy, oak desk. "No, I'm not. I'm wonderful. Ask anyone."

"I don't think you realise just how much your little ruse is going to cost me."

"Money, money, money. " Harry _tsk_ed. "Merlin, Malfoy, do you ever think of anything else?"

Draco swivelled his chair back around, hitting his knees on the side of the desk. He let out a yelp of pain and glared when Potter had the audacity to laugh at him. "I bloody tried thinking of my wife," he hissed, "and look where that's gotten me!"

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "You are so whipped, Malfoy."

"Me whipped?" Draco repeated, astounded. "Would you ever consider doing this to _your_ wife?"

Harry glanced down towards the carpeted floors, his face quickly paling at the sheer idea. "Uhh…"

Draco leaned back in his brown, leather seat and crossed his arms triumphantly. "My point exactly."

"So…" Harry said moments later. He ceased his infernal drumming and instead began to bounce a leg beneath the table. His ankle made the most imperceptible click at even the slightest bend of the joint, and it drove Draco absolutely spare. "Will you do it or not?"

"You know, some prior notice would have been nice," Draco said as he picked up his eagle feather quill. He spun it between his fingers in a remarkable show of dexterity before dipping into the open inkwell in front of him. "As in, _not fucking two hours beforehand_."

"You can't keep a secret, Malfoy," Harry told him, waving an idle hand dismissively. "You're hopeless around Hermione. It's why no one ever tells you things. You know, for a Slytherin, you're nowhere near as sneaky as everyone seems to think you should be."

"Hmm. Right." Draco tapped the end of his quill against a scrap sheet of parchment, blotting it with big, ugly puddles of ink. "Tell me this: when have you _ever_ been able to keep a secret from Hermione Granger-Malfoy?"

Harry looked thoughtful. "Hermione Granger-Malfoy. Doesn't roll of the tongue anywhere near as well with the addition of your ridiculous name, does it?"

Draco snorted in amusement. "The Malfoy name is far from ridiculous, and a thousand times better than anything as bloody pedestrian as _Potter_. The addition of it makes anything sound better. See, _Harry Malfoy_ sounds quite snazzy, doesn't it?"

"Ugh." Harry's face screwed up comically, as though he had been force-fed a lemon. "No need to insult _and_ sicken me in the same sentence, Malfoy, but I do agree; _Harry James Potter_ hardly seems like the sort of name to give the saviour of the wizarding world. Rather bland, really, isn't it?"

"Hermione was clearly pissed out of her gourd when she said you were modest."

"Getting back on track, though," Harry said, stressing every word. "Will you or will you not cancel whatever you had in mind for tonight?"

"I had _plans_ for her for tonight, Potter!" Draco whined, though he would deny it to the letter if ever questioned about his usage of such uncivilised inflections. "Plans that she actually asked for, no less – and were definitely not foisted upon her at the last possible second!"

"She doesn't know a damn thing about those tickets you bought her! You were surprising her, too!"

"She begged me for near on six bloody months for those tickets, Potter, regardless of whether or not she knew I'd buy them! I can't get a refund on them now, you dunce!"

Harry shifted in his seat and gave a one-armed shrug. "She'll love it. You know she will."

"She hates people making a fuss over her." Draco sighed, leaning forward to thwack his head solidly against the wood. "I'm going to live to regret this. _Fine_!"

"Good," Harry said, smirking, as though he expected no contest at all to his whims. "Now, you'd better think fast."

"Why?"

"Because Hermione's on her way here right now." Before Draco could get another word in, Harry had stood, moved to the corner of the room and thrown his Invisibility Cloak over his head, covering him from sight. The door had swung open on its silent hinges, revealing Hermione Granger-Malfoy on the threshold, her every delectable inch impeccably presented as always, save for her hair, which always looked as though it had come out worst in a pub brawl with a cyclone.

She bounced through the door and pressed her lips to his in greeting. She moved to stand between his legs and leaned back against his desk. His hands immediately set about stroking up and down her outer thighs, fiddling with the hem of his absolute favourite burgundy sexy/modest work frock on every up-stroke.

"Good afternoon," she said brightly.

"Good afternoon, darling," he returned, his voice low and rumbling and sure to reduce her to the tittering fourteen-year-old he knew she had never been, just how she liked. "To what do I own the pleasure of your visit?"

"I wanted to make sure we were clear about tonight."

Draco could have sworn he heard someone clear their throat.

"What was that?" Hermione asked, glancing about the room.

"Nothing," Draco said, glaring at the corner where he knew Harry stood. "Just… bickie went down the wrong way earlier, that's all." He held a fist to his mouth and coughed, as though to demonstrate. "So, what about tonight?"

She shot him an odd look. "You don't remember?"

The invisible throat cleared again, and Draco loudly coughed once more to cover it.

"Was there something I was supposed to remember?"

"Well… yes." She looked him up and down with appraising eyes and held a cool hand to his forehead. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine," he answered, a little too quickly. Begrudgingly, he admitted to himself that Potter was right; when it came to his wife of nearly five years, Draco was a piss poor liar. "Does this have something to do with why you were gone and out the door long before I woke up this morning?"

Hermione blushed. "I had to be here early this morning," she reminded him. "And your attentions on this particularly day every other year mean I'm rarely here before midday, if I'm able to get here at all."

Another throat-clearing, and another cough.

"This particular day?"

"The nineteenth?_ Of September_? You _do_ recall what today is, don't you?" she asked, her face falling.

He warred between admitting and feigning ignorance, and he was absolutely certain that the internal battle was playing out quite obviously over his features. Eventually, he settled on ignorance, because surely it would be far more suspicious to admit to his vivid knowledge of the day's occasion and still have to sidestep it.

He shook his head and asked in his very best innocent tone, "Today is something?"

He had never seen an expression go from sadness to mild annoyance to outright hostility so quickly.

"Right." She pushed herself from the desk and out from between his legs and stood on the other side. She paced up and down for a moment, muttering to herself, before stopping and fixing him with an expression of utter disbelief. "_Really_?"

"Have I done something wrong?"

"It's my…" She stopped and let out a deep breath. She moved a hand through her hair and got caught in a knot. She cursed and tugged it free. "You know what? Never mind. It's not terribly important after all." She braced her hands on the desk and leaned over, giving him a marvellous view of her cleavage. "So, was there anything you wanted to do tonight, then?"

He recognised the question for what it was; an out. She'd recognised his lie, not that it would have been a difficult feat, and offered up a chance to redeem himself. He had taken these outs many a time over the course of their relationship, most often when he would attempt to bullshit his way out of her 'Creature Crusader' – as she had come to be known in Ministry circles – fundraising balls. Harry cleared his throat again, far more forcefully this time, and Draco launched into a series of painfully forced coughs to cover him.

"I've made plans with the boys," he told her hoarsely, his eyes watering.

"Oh?" The look of surprise on her face only lasted a second before she set her hands on her hips and tapped her foot up and down; he had to suck in a breath to keep from groaning at the sight. "Doing what?"

"Quidditch."

Hermione raised a dubious brow and crossed her arms over her chest. "Quidditch? Playing or watching?"

"Watching."

Hermione hummed. "Who's playing?" she asked, likely hoping to trick him up, the saucy minx.

"Portugal and Ukraine," he quickly responded.

From the look on her face, Draco got the feeling his wife didn't quite believe him. "Portugal and Ukraine are playing here? In England?"

"Yes."

"During the off-season?"

"It's an exhibition match," he explained helplessly.

"And you absolutely can't miss it?"

"Nott, Zabini and I already have tickets. Box seats – very expensive."

"You bought them?"

"No. Blaise did. He came by about an hour ago to see if I wanted to join him."

"And Theo, too, correct?"

He very nearly rolled his eyes. "And Theo," he confirmed.

"And you said… yes?"

Harry cleared his throat again.

"How many sodding biscuits do you have lodged in there?" she snapped.

"Too bloody many," he muttered. "And yes, I said yes. We didn't have any plans tonight, did we?"

Hermione looked at him with an expression of such utter, palpable disappointment that he could feel nothing but guilt sinking in his stomach like a brick.

"No, I don't suppose we did," she said softly. She let out a sigh and rubbed her arms. "I'll see you when you get back tonight then."

"I won't be long, I promise," he assured her as he stood from his desk and came to stand in front of her. He wrapped a hand around her neck and leaned down to press a soft kiss to her lips, lingering for as long as he could before she pulled away.

"I love you, Hermione," he told her.

She smiled sadly. "I love you, too, Draco."

Before he could say another word, she took two steps back, pulled her wand from a concealed pocket and Apparated away with a far louder crack than was usual for her.

A silvery shimmer caught the corner of his eye, and he watched as the shimmer trickled downward and revealed Harry again, who was looking at him with the most incredulous expression.

"Smooth, Malfoy," Harry told him with a dramatic roll of his eyes. "Really, you couldn't say your dinner booking had been lost or something like that? That you had to work late? Promise to make it up to her later? God, anything but _that_!"

Draco growled and stalked back to his seat. "You owe me _big_ for this, Potter."

"I owe you nothing. You dug your own hole."

He growled again and took his quill firmly in hand, attacking his paperwork with vicious, dark strokes of ink. "You'd better throw her the best, most fantastic birthday party she's ever seen, Potter, or I swear to God, I am dragging you to hell with me."

**XXX**

"He's a bastard, Luna," Hermione said mournfully, a glass (her third since arriving a little over an hour before) filled almost to the top with a deep, ruby red liquid she couldn't identify held firmly in her hand. Luna had her own large jug of the same red liquid propped up on her table, which she drank from directly and liberally. "An utter bastard."

"The scourge of the earth," Luna agreed airily as she sorted through a large pile of just-picked radishes, carrots and potatoes on her coffee table. There were patches of soil staining her fluffy, cream-coloured carpets, and a small jar of earthworms that she had plucked off the roots sat at her side.

It was her favourite thing about Luna's little cottage on the outskirts of Dublin; no two things were ever the same when she visited. The last time Hermione had visited, Luna had been hanging garlands of popcorn over her windows (to feed the Smooth-Horned Snorkack that would occasionally flit through; a newly discovered, much smaller variety than the Crumple-Horned, apparently). The time before that, she had been planting grass seeds on the floor of one of her tiny guest bedrooms and germinating them with her wand (for when her father visited, because there was little else Xenophilius Lovegood liked more than to have freshly dewed grass be the first thing his feet touched in the mornings).

"There aren't even any Quidditch matches on today, or even in the near future, the lying prat," Hermione grumbled. "How dense does he think I am?" She sighed and slumped back on the sofa upholstered with fabric printed with thousands of little Golden Snitches, Bludgers and Quaffles. "We were going to go to the theatre, and to dinner, maybe have some cake, then go home and shag and… and he's just a _bastard_!"

"Despicable, of course."

"You know he'd had tickets since at least June? I found them in his side of the bathroom cabinet. I had to use every pseudo-Slytherin trick I had in me in order to get Draco to agree to even consider buying them in the first place!"

Luna swallowed another hefty mouthful of her drink, her cheeks popped out like a squirrel's, and said, "I'm sure you were very shrewd."

"I was! Draco even said he was proud of me! I can't think of any conceivable reason why he would pretend to forget. It seems such a waste of Galleons." Hermione shot up in her seat, sloshing her drink over Luna's carpets. "You don't think that maybe… maybe he's seeing someone else?"

Without batting an eyelid, Luna lifted her wand and syphoned the spilt liquid away, but kept the patches of dirt as they were. Luna had strange priorities, Hermione noticed.

"Think about it," Hermione went on urgently. "He lied about going to a Quidditch match, he forgot my birthday, or pretended to, at least –"

"Draco can't cheat, Hermione," Luna cut in, her voice soft and lilting. "He doesn't have the blood for it."

Hermione paused. "What on earth do you mean by that?"

"Don't you know? There's a fidelity curse in the Malfoy line, rather like a primitive marriage contract. In the fifteenth century, Catherina Peverell was spurned by Amadeus Malfoy, whom she loved dearly. She eventually conned him into marriage and cursed him to never stray again. They had nine children and were married for eighty-six years – quite happily as well, by all accounts – before Amadeus passed. The curse was passed down the Malfoy line and still exists to this day. It doesn't sway or force emotions; it just means he can't be unfaithful without his bits shrivelling up and falling off, and I'm sure you would have noticed if that were the case."

"Hmm, yes." Hermione thought back to two nights previous, where her husband's bits were most certainly not shrivelled up, and definitely not gone altogether. She suppressed a tingly little shiver at the memory and took another sip of her drink.

"Perhaps he's planning something special for you?" Luna suggested. "A surprise that he doesn't want you to know about?"

Hermione cocked her head and considered that. "Perhaps," she allowed. "If that was the case, though, he certainly didn't need to lie about everything."

"It wouldn't be a surprise if he told you what it was."

Hermione sighed and looked down at her glass. She sniffed the contents. It was sickly sweet with a hint of something like incense. "What is this, anyway?"

Luna diligently scrubbed at a bright purple potato. "Dirigible plum juice, of course."

"Oh." Hermione swallowed the rest of the contents in one gulp. "It's quite good."

"Isn't it? I juiced them myself." Luna took another healthy swig from her jug before she held it out to her. "Would you like some more? It is your birthday, after all."

Hermione looked up at Luna, finding the oddball blonde smiling away as though she didn't have a care in the world. "You didn't put anything funny in it, did you?" she asked warily.

Luna looked curious. "Funny, Hermione? However do you mean?"

"Funny, like your…" Hermione hesitated. "Like those… _herbs_ I told you not to grow that I saw outside, growing anyway?"

"Some." She picked up a radish from the table and brushed it down lovingly. "The colours are lovely, aren't they?"

Hermione wasn't quite sure what to say.

"I think Draco may surprise you, Hermione," Luna went on as she set the radish down and pulled the worms off the greens of a carrot. "He is rarely idle, and doesn't do anything without a reason. Please don't write him off too hastily."

Hermione paused. "But he lied. I'm allowed to be suspicious. And annoyed."

"And you have every right to be. But what if I told you there was somewhere we could go where all your questions would be answered?"

Hermione stood from the chair and leapt across the small room towards the rack where her coat was hanging. "I would say that we should go," she said, tying the sash that went around her waist. "Now."

Luna glanced at the plastic children's watch, adorned with a smiling cartoon mouse, on her wrist. "We can't go for at least another hour, I'm afraid."

Hermione paused mid-way through wrapping her thin, floral-print scarf around her neck. "Why not?"

"I promised I wouldn't take you there before seven," she explained serenely.

Hermione gaped. "Who did you promise? Draco?" She rounded on the blonde. "Do you know what's going on here, Luna?"

"Not Draco," she answered patiently. "Harry."

"Harry!" Hermione repeated shrilly. "What does he know?"

"Everything, Hermione. Harry knows everything. Just wait."

"But –"

"One hour, Hermione. The herbs will have worn off by then, anyway."

**XXX**

"What the bloody hell are we even doing?" Draco muttered to a collective _shush_ from the other fifty-odd people in the room. They all sat, in perfect silence (well, what passed for silence in a Weasley household, anyway), in crouched positions behind different pieces of furniture in the Potters' darkened living room. Draco got the feeling it was all some great, big joke no one wanted to let him in on.

"We're waiting," Harry whispered. He balanced on his lap his two little clones, both saddled with the most unfortunate names Draco had ever heard. James Sirius was perched patiently on one knee, clutching a small, poorly wrapped parcel that Draco guessed neither of the kid's parents had a hand in, while Albus Severus was propped up on the other, brandishing at anyone who dared to come within striking distance a bright green lollipop.

"For what, exactly?" Draco questioned, impatient.

"For Aunty 'Mione," James said, as though it was completely obvious.

"Good boy, James," Harry praised with a kiss to the crown of the boy's head. "When Hermione arrives," Harry slowly explained, as though Draco were a small child as well, "she'll walk through the door, we'll burst out from the shadows and yell, 'Surprise!' She's shocked, but she laughs, gives us all hugs, kisses you, if you can talk your way out of that ditch you've dug yourself into, then we eat and watch her open her presents, then we have cake and all leave happy. Honestly, Malfoy, did no one ever throw you a surprise party when you were a child?"

Draco looked at him pointedly, and Harry flinched. "Point taken."

"She doesn't like being surprised, Potter," Draco pointed out. "Certainly not in a manner like this. If she walks through the door and everyone leaps out from the dark, we're going to give her a heart attack."

"No one made you come here, Malfoy."

"What was my other option? Sit at home alone while Hermione came here and plotted various ways to bring bodily harm upon my impeccable person?"

He could just about hear Harry roll his eyes. "Hermione isn't modest about that sort of thing. If she is in fact planning on something like that, and I wouldn't blame her if that were the case, she certainly wouldn't have any qualms about doing it here."

"Even in front of the offspring?" Draco inquired as he tugged gently on one of two-year-old Albus Severus' (_good bloody God…_) black curls. The child giggled like a maniac and tried to clutch at him with his sticky little fingers. Draco pulled his hand away with a grimace.

"She'd consider it a lesson," Harry said fondly as he bounced his sons on his knees. "Wouldn't she, Albus?"

The little boy gurgled happily.

Draco shook his head. "I still can't believe you named him that," he muttered.

"What, Albus Severus?"

"Yes, that one. No one's going to be able to look at the poor mite without seeing a flamboyant, hundred-and-fifty year old man who spoke almost entirely in riddles, or a surly Potions' Master who couldn't abide by anything, least of all small children."

Harry smirked. "I can't wait for you and Hermione to have kids, Malfoy."

"Hermione and I decided to wait on sprogs until we were both in positions that we felt we had enough time between us to actually raise them. My lovely wife is nothing if not practical. However, they will be gorgeous children. I can't blame you for anticipating them."

"Do you honestly think Hermione wouldn't want to honour someone who fell in the war? I'll have you know, she thought very highly of Remus Lupin."

"No child of mine will be saddled with such a ridiculous name!" Draco confidently declared.

"I suspect she'd want to honour Colin Creevey in some way, too," Harry went on, sounding nearly gleeful. "She was rather fond of him. Or possibly even Hagrid."

There was a feminine snort somewhere to Draco's left, and he was horrified to hear Ginny Potter, her stomach full almost to bursting with Junior Potter number three, whisper through cackles, "Remus Colin Hagrid Malfoy. Wonderful."

"Over my dead body is any child of mine getting a name like that," he growled as the entire room, full to the brim with mostly Weasleys and other assorted former Gryffindors, burst out in laughter.

"Hermione being as vindictive as she is, I don't think that will be a problem." Harry chuckled. "Point being, shut up about my kid's names and I won't say a word whether you come home with little Scorpius or Lynx or Phoenix, or with little Remus Colin Hagrid, alright?"

"Touché, Potter."

The room fell quiet once more, save for occasional cough, sneeze, snort or other loud bodily function.

"How do you even know she'll come?" Draco hissed nearly ten minutes later. His legs were beginning to cramp from being hunched over for so bloody long. "We've been waiting over half an hour!"

"Luna said she'd bring her," Harry replied patiently. "I trust her."

"Loony Lovegood?" Draco exclaimed, aghast. "That's who you're trusting with my wife?"

"Why wouldn't I? And don't call her that."

"Lovegood is the flightiest person I've ever had the dubious pleasure of knowing!"

Harry shot him an odd look. "What on earth do you think Luna's going to do?"

"What is the worst she could do?"

"I don't know. You tell me; you're obviously the one with the theories."

"Hermione says she grows Muggle drugs in her front yard."

Harry turned to him slowly with the most quizzical, confused expression Draco had ever seen on the Boy Who Lived to Tell the Tale. It suited him, Draco thought with satisfaction. At Hogwarts, Draco had rarely seen Potter wearing an expression that came anywhere close to coherent understanding without Hermione whispering explanations in his ear.

The room actually was perfectly silent (for once) when Potter finally stuttered out, "I'm sorry… but _what_ did you just say?"

Draco opened his mouth to explain but was quickly interrupted by a confused female voice on the other side of the front door.

"What are we doing here, Luna?"

"I told you already, Hermione; Harry will explain everything."

"But it's dark! Obviously no one is home."

"Looks can be deceiving, Hermione. Not everything is as it seems."

There was a pause as the doorknob was turned. The room held a collective breath as the door was pushed open as Hermione said, "There are some times that I absolutely hate your riddles, Luna."

Someone, Draco had no idea who, muttered an incantation that lit the room with light. At the same moment, he felt Ginny yank him up alongside her by his collar as everyone else moved to do the same.

"_Surprise_!" the occupants of the room yelled simultaneously.

Hermione screamed and fell back against Luna, sending both women tumbling to the floor.

"Hermione!" Draco leapt forward and took her gently by the wrist, hauling her upright and pulling her warm body against his. He dotted her face with soft little kisses even as she tensed against him. "Are you alright? I didn't forget you birthday – Happy Birthday by the way, darling – and I didn't forget your tickets, or that I had plans to shag you rotten tonight. Potter is an arsehole who has no sense of decency or timing."

"Hey!" Harry exclaimed, insulted, as he helped Luna to her feet.

"You," Hermione hissed through heavy pants, her eyes flicking malevolently between his and Harry's, then over the contingent of Weasleys and Gryffindors behind them, "the two of you… have _so_ much explaining to do."

Draco exchanged a look with Harry before taking the other man by the wrist and yanking him forward. "You heard the woman, Potter. Explain yourself."

"Me?" Harry repeated, affronted. "I'm only responsible for the party, Malfoy. Which is lovely, if I do say so myself. It's hardly my fault you've had poor Hermione in a tizzy all afternoon with your ridiculous lies!"

"If it weren't for you putting me on the bloody spot like you did it wouldn't have been a problem!"

"Boys!" Hermione spoke firmly. They turned to find her looking at them both with suspicion and thinly veiled annoyance. She set her hands on her hips and tapped her foot against the Potters' hardwood floor and, once again, Draco had to keep from groaning at the sight. "I'm waiting."

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>Hope you enjoyed, despite the abrupt ending. As this was a pinch-hit, I was a tad strapped for time, so this isn't quite as fleshed as I'd like it to be. But, I do think it stands well on its own, and even if I did come back to add something, I'm not entirely sure what it would be. In any case, a review if you liked this one would be lovely - consider it your Christmas present from you to me!


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